William Carey

Life and work

Carey was a largely self-taught English shoemaker who learned Greek, Latin, and Hebrew while working his trade and became convinced, against the prevailing view among many contemporary Baptists that the Great Commission applied only to the apostolic age, that Christians retained an active obligation to evangelize the whole world.

In 1792 Carey published An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens, a pamphlet that helped found the Baptist Missionary Society; the following year he sailed for India, where he would spend the rest of his life without returning to England.

Carey settled eventually in the Danish colony of Serampore, near Calcutta, working initially as an indigo plantation manager to support himself while learning Bengali and other Indian languages. He and his colleagues translated the Bible, in whole or in part, into dozens of Indian languages and founded Serampore College in 1818, one of India's first degree-granting institutions.

Beyond translation, Carey campaigned against the practice of sati (widow immolation), promoted agricultural and botanical science, and helped establish a printing press that produced texts in numerous Indian languages, leaving a footprint on Indian education and public life well beyond narrowly religious activity.

Carey's example and writing are widely credited with launching the great wave of nineteenth-century Protestant foreign missions that followed, earning him the frequently used, if somewhat overstated, title "father of modern missions."

In their own words

"Expect great things from God; attempt great things for God."attributed motto

Further reading

• Encyclopedia Britannica: William Carey